Poem for Manipur

May 7, 2016

Ananya S. Guha

dogged valley

your ribs are a cage
the sloping mountainsriddle you with the heavy past
their blues trace your body
to the ancientness of myths
and even as a new scriptis grafted onto your people
you fast for justice and deaththose chains, those fetters
binding you deep
to the rattle of guns imperviousto your palaces and kings
rice grows wild,
men and women live,
like cattle,
and hills and valleys meditate
in halting silence.